Hermione and the Bureaucrat
by Norwegian Blue
Summary: Hermione shows some signs of accidental magic before getting her Hogwarts letter and has her first experience with magical folk and their strange customs.


Hermione winced at the sudden eruption of screeching from downstairs but remained still. If she didn't make any noise or cause the floorboards to creak, they might forget she was here. At least that was what her irrational mind was saying. Her rational mind was telling her that the little Hellions would never forget she was there. At the moment, however, she was feeling a tad stressed and irrational. So not moving so that Hellions A and B would forget she was there made complete sense at the moment.

Hermione was staying the week at her aunt's house. Her parents were away at a dental convention that was meeting to discuss how best to deal with the expected flood of patients after the Halloween holiday. Which meant that Hermione had to go somewhere. Her parents were the first to admit that she was very responsible for her age, but still, she had only turned eleven last month, and no eleven year old, no matter how mature, could spend a week by herself. Hermione, had she not known it was a waste of time would have begged to differ. But it was and she knew it so she hadn't, and now she found herself at her Aunt Emma's, with said Hellions. Hellions with a capital "H" despite the fact that they were deceptively small in stature. Hellion number one was commonly called Ettie, who had inflicted Hermione with her presence for four years. Hellion number two went by the name of Moira and at eight years old, Hermione might have gotten used to her, if she didn't encourage her sister so much. Actually, Hermione might have gotten used to both of them if they hadn't encouraged each other.

Hermione had expected tonight to be the worst night of the week. Tonight was The Holiday. Both Hellions were prematurely sugar high in promise of the sweets that were sure to be at the party they were going to. That party was the reason why Hermione, normally very eager to show her presence to the world, was pretending at that moment not to exist. Aunt Emma and her husband John were going out to a Halloween "get-together" that night and their daughters were invited to a Halloween party at the neighbours. This was all well and good. When she had heard of these arrangements, Hermione had been pleased. This would have been the first time in days where she would have time to herself. Get some reading done without the Hellions demanding to know why she was reading a book that didn't have anything to do with school. Of course, that was not meant to be. That would have made her life easier. The same traits that made her a mature, responsible eleven year old apparently also made her an excellent babysitter. At least according to her aunt. Hermione wasn't sure how her aunt knew this. Generally Hermione made herself scarce when Aunt Emma started hinting that she needed a babysitter. She had watched the Hellions once, a few months ago, for exactly forty-seven minutes. She did not care to repeat the incident, which was why she was so eager for her relatives to forget she was within a ten-mile radius.

Aunt Emma wanted someone to keep an eye on her precious daughters at the party. She did not want to impose on the organiser of the party. The party was for children ages three to ten. Nonsense, Hermione just turned eleven a month ago, that won't matter.

There was someone coming up the stairs. Hermione looked quickly around her. The closet was too far away, and the bed was of the type where there were drawers underneath. Uncle John tapped on the door and then opened it while she was still trying to find a place to go.

"Hermione! Where have you been? The girls want to dress you up. Hope you have nothing against going as a witch," Uncle John said with a chuckle.

Dressing up involved Ettie sitting on Hermione while Moira smeared green face make-up on her face and neck and part of her hair, putting a nose with a rubber band on her face and managing to pull her hair in the process, and pinning a black pointed hat to said hair. When they finally let Hermione up, it was to force her to put on a black cape. Aunt Emma and Uncle Jack went out to a store to buy some biscuits to bring to the party they were going to. Ettie and Moira got dressed in their costumes so they would be ready to leave when their parents came back. Ettie was dressed up as a ballerina and Moira was dressed as an angel. Within seconds of their parents gone they were both acting very angelic and graceful.

"You got dirt on my tutu! I'm tellin'!"

"Shut up! It's not my fault that you're a clumsy brat."

"I'm not a brat!" Ettie said, pushing up against her sister, who in turn pushed into Hermione, who had been standing at the kitchen sink, trying to see if she could get some of the green stuff out of her hair.

"Will you two knock it off?" she snapped, pushing Moira away. To her surprise, the girl slid across the kitchen floor and hit the wall on the other side.

"Oh my gosh! Moira, are you all right?" Hermione said, shocked and appalled that she had pushed the girl so hard. Aunt Emma was going to be so angry.

"I-I can't move," Moira said, as shocked as Hermione was.

"You're paralysed?" Hermione whispered.

"No, I mean I'm stuck!" Moira grunted, trying to push herself from the wall.

"Oh, stop being so stupid," Hermione forgot worrying about her aunt and grabbed Moira's shoulder.

"Moira, I mean it, stop it!" Hermione snapped when they shoulder did not pull against the wall.

"I can't!" This time Moira sounded scared. Ettie started whimpering.

"All right, let me think," Hermione ran through the possibilities. The humidity in the air made the paint on the wall sticky. But it wasn't very humid, and Hermione knew that they hadn't painted the kitchen recently. Another possibility, Moira's acting skills had improved considerably and had put on a lot of weight while hiding it very well. Hermione pulled on her shoulder again. It simply wasn't going to budge. Ettie started crying. Moira looked very close to tears herself. Hermione looked at the clock on the wall. This was a record for them, only five minutes this time.

They spent another five minutes trying to get Moira from the wall. Hermione was getting desperate enough to look for Aunt Emma's vegetable oil when there was a knock on the door. Hermione sighed. She would just try to keep them out of the kitchen. "Keep trying to get her from the wall," she instructed Ettie.

Hermione opened the door. There were two men and a woman standing there, dressed in navy blue trousers and white shirts with badges with the letters "AMRS" pinned on them. "Can I help you?" she asked as calmly as possible.

The taller man in the back read off his clipboard. "We've received notification about the current problems you are experiencing."

"Problems?" Hermione heard her voice go up a few octaves.

The man consulted his clipboard again. "One Ms. Moira Madder, unable to move from a position on the wall of a kitchen."

Hermione felt her face go white. "How could you possibly know about that?"

The other man smiled in relief. "Well, at least we've got the right place, less work then."

"But--,"

"Don't worry," he clapped her on the shoulder. "We'll fix it in a jiff." The other man passed the clipboard to the woman, and he joined the other man in the kitchen.

"Can you tell me your name, love?" the woman asked kindly.

"I-I-," Hermione had too many questions. "I can't tell my name to a stranger. How did you know about this? Are you from the hospital?"

"Don't worry, love. We're the Accidents and Mishaps Reversal Squad, special Ministry department to handle things like this. Can you just tell me your name?"

"How do you already know Moira's name?"

"Ah, we've got sensitive equipment." The woman pointed with her pen toward the van sitting in the driveway. "AMRS" was stencilled on it.

"I didn't hear anyone pull up," Hermione protested.

"Come on, don't you think the Ministry provides the best for its employees? That's a state of the art van. Come now, I know that your name is Hermione Granger, I just need you to confirm it."

Hermione's jaw went slack. "How do you know all our names?"

"Ah, so you are Hermione. Just wanted to keep track of things. Don't worry, Hermione, this is all perfectly normal." The woman made a note on the clipboard. "This will all make sense soon enough." Just then, the shorter man poked his head in, "Prune, we're done now."

"Ah good, come on, love," the woman said to Hermione. Hermione, not knowing what else to do, and wanting to see what was happening to Moira and Ettie, followed.

The shorter man, who seemed to be in charge, leaned up against the wall that Moira had been stuck to. Moira herself was stretching her shoulders and looking at the strangers and Hermione distrustfully. Ettie was sitting at the kitchen table.

"Right, then. Does anyone want to explain what happened?" the shorter man asked.

"She's a witch," Ettie said accusingly to the AMRS, pointing at Hermione.

"How do you know she's a witch?" the shorter man asked her indulgently.

"She made my sister fly across the room!"

The man made a show of looking Hermione up and down. "I don't think this young lady is strong enough to throw your sister across the room."

"She didn't throw me!" Moira hollered. "She did something to make me fly across the room. She probably is a witch!"

"I'm not a witch," Hermione snapped at her cousins. She turned to the man to put an end to this and repeated, "I'm not a witch!"

"Well, you _are_ dressed as one," said the man, with an exaggerated wink at her. "And you have got the right nose for it."

Hermione rolled her eyes. How dare this man patronize her? She had been having a perfectly horrible night, and she certainly wasn't going to play his silly games.

"_They_ dressed me up like this."

"No! No we didn't!" Moira yelled. "She put that cape on herself!"

Hermione ignored them. "And this isn't my nose, it's a false one."

The man again made a show of pulling off the nose and examining Hermione's normal sized one. Then he turned to her cousins. "Well?"

"Well, we did do the nose, obviously" said Moira, sticking her own up in the air.

"The nose?"

"And the hat," Ettie said, scuffing her foot on the ground. Apparently she was sufficiently intimidated by a seeming government official. But she quickly continued, "But she is a witch!"

"Did _you _make her look like this?" the man said, gesturing towards Hermione's face, which was smeared with green make-up.

"No!" Ettie insisted. "No, no, no!"

Moira gave her a withering look. "Yes, yes. A bit, yes, a bit."

Ettie chimed back in. "She has got a wart!" She said, pointing to a bump on Hermione's neck.

"That's a bug bite!" Hermione said, exasperated.

The man appeared to be thinking. "Forgetting about tonight's episode, what makes you think she's a witch?"

"She turned me into a newt!" Ettie said indignantly.

The man looked at her. "A newt?"

Ettie paused for a second, shooting a dirty look at Hermione. "Well, I got better."

"Oh, hush," said Hermione. "I certainly did not, you probably dreamt that. How do you even know what a newt is?"

The man said to her cousins, "Well, if she is a witch," he said, winking at Hermione. "What should we do with her?"

Moira looked surprised that he was asking that. "Well, Miss Thompson says that back in the olden days, they used to burn witches." She looked positively thrilled at the prospect.

"Oh, you certainly don't want to burn your poor cousin. There are _ways_ of telling if she is a witch."

Ettie piped up again. "Are there? What? Tell us, then. Tell us!"

"What do you do with witches?"

Ettie looked up at her older sister. "You burn them!"

Hermione groaned and slapped her hand against her face. She was never going to be with these terrors ever again.

The man was actually encouraging them. "What do you burn apart from witches?"

"More witches!" Ettie squealed.

"Shut up," Moria commanded. "Wood," she said to the man.

"Excellent," the man said to Moria, then he turned to Ettie. "So why did witches burn in the olden days?"

Ettie thought for a few moments. "B-because they're made of…wood?" She suggested, staring at her feet.

"Gooood!" The man said. Hermione slapped her face again. "So how can we tell if your cousin is made of wood?"

Ettie thought for a few minutes. Moira had more sense than that, but she was probably too eager to see what the man would do to Hermione.

"Make a table out of her!" Ettie finally suggested.

"Aah. But can't you also use metal to make a table?"

"Ooohhh yeah," Ettie said thoughtfully. "Hmmm."

"Tell me," the man said. "Does wood sink?"

Ettie thought for a moment. Then her face lit up. "No! No, it floats!"

Moira looked positively gleeful. "There's a duck pond out back! Let's throw her in!"

The man held up a hand. "What also floats in water?"

Ettie started running off things that happened to be in the room, many of which didn't actually float. "Bread, apples, dust, forks, shoes, cushions, books, churches…" There was an engraving of a church on the wall.

Moira looked out the window. "A duck."

"Exactly," said the man. "So, logically…" he said, turning to Ettie.

"If…she weighs…the same as a duck…she's made of wood," Ettie said uncertainly, looking up at the man. He nodded encouragingly. "And that means…"

"She's a witch!" Ettie squealed.

"Very good!" Hermione seriously hoped the man was still joking. She started edging toward the phone. "I'll go and get my scales. I've just left them outside." He went outside. Hermione started to run out the back door, but the two other people from the group moved in front of the exit. Hermione banged her head against the wall, repeatedly.

"There'll be none of that," said the man, who was somehow was wielding an impossibly large set of scales along with carrying a duck under an arm. He managed to find a place in the kitchen to put the scales down. "Miss Granger, if you would?"

There was no way she would weigh the same as a duck. Hopefully this would put an end to the nonsense. She hopped up on one of the scales, and the man put the duck on the other. The scales went up and down like a seesaw for a moment, and then balanced out. Hermione groaned. There would be no end to this now. Hopefully Aunt Emma would come back soon and put an end to this nonsense.

"She's a witch!" Moira said. She loved this.

"Burn her!" Ettie squealed.

"All right, if you insist." The man said, starting toward Hermione. Oh no, this was taking things way to far. Even Ettie started to look unsure. Hermione shot a look at the woman. She said everything would turn out fine! This was not fine!

"You aren't really going to burn her, are you?" Ettie asked.

The man didn't answer, and continued walking toward her. She started to scream…

"There, there," said an unfamiliar man who was standing in the kitchen. "Everything is fine," he said, patting her shoulder. Hermione wanted to ask him why he had what appeared to be a duck feather stuck in his hair.

She looked around. She was in her aunt's kitchen. Ettie was sitting at the kitchen table, sleeping with her head cradled in her arms. Moira was being looked at by a woman, she must have been an EMT, who was shining a light in her eyes. Hermione herself was sitting on the other side of the kitchen table.

"What happened?" Hermione asked. She saw another man talking to Aunt Emma, who was looking worried and nodding a lot.

"Everything's fine, now," the man said. "There was a carbon monoxide leak, and you three passed out. Lucky your aunt had a carbon monoxide detector. Unfortunately when it went off, only your cousin, Moira, is it? Moira heard it, and she panicked and ran into a wall. The neighbours heard the alarm going off and called the authorities.

Hermione grew alarmed. "If there was a carbon monoxide leak, why are we still in the house? Why aren't we at hospital?" The man frowned…

Hermione was standing in front of her aunt's house, not quite sure how she got there. "Bye, Hermione. Hope you feel better!" A man was yelling to her as he and his companions went into a van. "All of you get some rest!" She wasn't sure what was going on, and, looking at the expressions on her cousins' and aunt's faces, they probably didn't, either. Whatever the man was hoping she would get better from probably had something to do with that. She felt like she should be worried about something, but she couldn't remember what it was.

* * *

"I really wish you would stop doing that, Michael," Prunella Cleese said to her partner, Michael Idle, Junior Head Officer of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad. She never knew how he actually got to that position. John Chapman, the other fellow in their squad, said that heavy money was probably involved. "Things are busy enough without your jokes. And sometimes I think you really frighten the kids. That girl seriously thought you were going to do something. _I_ knew better and I _still_ was afraid you were going to do something."

"Oh come on Prunella," he chided, drawing out the last syllable of her name. "Don't you ever get bored, every single day, the same thing, undoing some Muggle born kiddie's magic, or some idiot who can't control himself?"

"Or herself," added John distractedly, filling out paperwork.

Michael rolled his eyes. "Anyway, no harm done, and we get to have a bit of fun."

"It's good that this didn't happen any later, or else the Ministry might make a stink about her getting her Hogwarts letter, saying she should be disciplined and all that." Prunella sighed. "I still wish Dumbledore was able to take the Minister's position. Fudge kicks up a fuss about the silliest things."

A/N: If you're reading this, than I thank you mightily for making it this far. This idea got stuck in my head and I kept giggling at random times picturing it. Yes, I know I didn't get all the lines right, I had to take some liberties or else it wouldn't have worked. Credit goes to the genius that is Python, even if I did horribly butcher one of the greatest scenes in cinematic history. Credit also goes to aihjah, for writing her story, "Remus on the barricades", which I imagine was also the inspiration for this fic. Read this story if the name "Arthur Dent" means anything to you. Or even if it doesn't.


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